


you, who held my hand back then and smiled

by aymrsbhar



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers for Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aymrsbhar/pseuds/aymrsbhar
Summary: "have you ever," edelgard wonders, "left someone you loved?" // edelgard - centric.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	you, who held my hand back then and smiled

**Author's Note:**

> i'm back, my apologies for not writing much! i came up with this on a whim...consider this maybe a vent piece? either way, i missed writing for them, so, please expect more from me soon! also, consider this piece as a companion to one of my other works -- a certain one about sylvain having come to the empire in the beginning ;)

Sylvain doesn’t really know how to answer, other than to ask in return, “What brings this up, Princess?” 

“...I thought that you would have more experience with this, is all,” Edelgard sets her teacup down, squaring her gaze over at him. Her eyes remain closed, and she purses her lips as she looks up at him before averting her gaze. She takes a soft breath, and she lifts her cup to her lips once more. 

Sylvain says nothing, and she furrows her brows at him. 

“Just tell me.” 

Sylvain hums, leaning back in his chair. He tries to rack his brain for some instance of it; he can’t find any.

“Sure I have,” he tells her anyway. Lilac eyes avert back to meet his, and she sits up a little straighter. “There was a girl back in Fhirdiad who I really, really liked. Her father hated me -- we had to break up after that. Is that what you were looking for?” 

“No, not really,” Edelgard sighs. It’s uncharacteristic for her, to slump back down and she props her elbow back onto her leg to support her chin when she places it on her palm. She looks to the side, thinking for a moment, before her gaze turns back to him. “We don’t have much time.” 

“I know.” 

They sit in the courtyard in silence, before Sylvain speaks up. “What about Dimitri?” 

“What about him?” 

“...Is that why you asked?” 

Edelgard averts her gaze once more. Sylvain gets it. “What are you going to do?” 

"I don’t know.” Her teacup is running low, and she’s about to reach for the teapot but Sylvain beats her to it. He takes it, pouring her another cup of bergamot. She thanks him, watches him pour himself another cup, and he sets the teapot down. They take absentminded sips together; Edelgard smiles against the rim of her cup. 

“What do you think you’re going to do?” is what Sylvain asks instead. Edelgard finds that a lot easier to answer, and a lot less harder to ponder. 

“He’s going to hate me anyway,” she places her cup on her saucer with a sigh. “It doesn’t matter if I break up with him, or just leave him out of the blue, or otherwise. He’s going to know who I am, anyway.” 

“You don’t know that. You could get away with the Flame Emperor disguise.” 

“But for how long?” 

Sylvain doesn’t quite now how to answer that question, either. Edelgard seems to pick up on it. 

“...You’re quieter than usual today,” she notes. She adjusts her position so now she’s sitting up in her chair. Sylvain scratches the top of his head with a sheepish grin. 

“You think so?” the grin that he wears on his face never changes. Edelgard wants to hope that it stays that way; in times like these, when the others just might leave her side and he and Hubert are all she has left she needed that smile more than ever. 

“I think so.” The silence comes so naturally before she asks again, just to be sure, “...have you really never left anyone you’ve loved before?” 

“No.” Sylvain is honest this time. 

“You didn’t love that girl?” 

“I don’t think I did.” 

Edelgard is no longer startled by his brutal honesty. “How cruel of you.” 

“You’re one to talk.” They sip their tea in silence. 

. 

Edelgard was never one to sit idly by, not when there were things to do and plans to be made. That’s what she does, though; she spends her mornings now, sitting idly by in front of her vanity with ribbons strewn about, and a smudged charcoal drawing of a boy she once loved, with golden hair and blue eyes that she could no longer capture and stained fingers being proof of that.

Sylvain knew of her morning habits rather well, because she draws that boy from her memory and he comes in once more to help her get ready for the day, or at least before hubert has to start briefing her with plans to storm the monastery. He sees the way that she captures Dimitri’s smile, or at least what she was able to remember of it, and his gaze would flicker over to the jewelry box she keeps locked. Her ring sits in there, he remembers; it's her best memory of him. 

“We have to go soon,” is what he tells her, when he twists open the doorknob to her room and she sits there, running her fingers through her hair and twisting and curling the ribbons into it. “Hubert’s expecting you in the throne room pretty soon.” 

“I’ll be there,” is all she says. They’re there in silence for a little while, and when Sylvain sees that the pads of her fingers are stained with charcoal he knows that he has to do something. He steps in, taking the basin and pitcher at her bedside and pours some more water into it. He hooks a towel into the crook of his elbow and carries the basin over. 

“Hubert told me what happened.” Sylvain takes her hands in his gently, dipping the towel into the basin and one by one, starts cleaning her fingers. Edelgard watches, as tiny drops of water start to sprinkle onto her sketches and she figures that it looks much better that way. The boy she loved was nothing more than a memory now. 

“And it’s exactly what I predicted -- he hates me,” she responds as she gives him her other hand. “Threatened to break my neck, thinks that i had some part in the Tragedy of Duscur. I saw it coming.” 

“That’s quite the break up.” 

Edelgard shakes her head and lets him continue wiping her fingers clean of the charcoal. 

"I think I was ready for it.” 

Sylvain wants to think otherwise, because he’s seen her with Dimitri away from prying eyes; away from prying eyes, she loves Dimitri more than anything. 

“What do you think you’re going to do when you get out there?” he asks her instead. He thinks he can bring up asking her if she still loved him later. The sketches that she has of him are an indication of it. “You’re going to have to fight him.” 

“I know,” is all she says. 

“Are you ready?” 

“Are _you_?” she turns the question on him. “You grew up with him.” 

“I did, but I ran away from the Kingdom. Of course I’m not ready.” 

Edelgard dries her hands on a part of the towel that remained untouched. “I didn’t suspect that answer from you.” 

Sylvain grins, “there’s not a lot of things that you would expect from me.” 

He moves the bowl off of the sketches, water smudging the charcoal and yet Dimitri is still recognizable. The boy that Edelgard loved, Sylvain thinks again, is only but a memory. 

“Do you still love him?” maybe that wasn’t the right way to ask that, because he watches her purse her lips. Instead, he tries again. “Did you know how much he loved you?” 

“...No,” she whispers, then she finally gets up from her vanity chair. “I never knew.” 

“Do you miss him?” 

“I try not to,” is how she responds, then brushing past him to start dressing in her armor. Sylvain watches her go, and he looks down at the sketches on her vanity, with the pieces of charcoal strewn about. 

This says otherwise. 

. 

Dimitri’s bloodied and barely battered, but he grips his lance tighter than she had ever seen him before. They stand face to face, against the screams of dying soldiers and the sounds of weapons clanging against each other all around them. Edelgard’s world spins; he’s the center of it. 

“You’re late,” he points his lance at her. Edelgard sees something beneath his glove, the imprint of a ring, and she swallows. “I...We are all tired of waiting.” 

Silence, amongst the dying soldiers and metal against metal. Despite her gaze meeting his out of the corner of her eye she swears he can hear the leather of his glove squeeze tighter when he grips his lance. “Now, let’s separate that sick head of yours from your neck, shall we?” 

She holds her axe out towards him in return, her world centering around him one last time. “You never were one for patience.” 


End file.
